Subscribe

Joining Nokia: Connecting People ... and Helping People Relate

On Monday, I embark on a new chapter in my career, as a Principal Scientist at Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto[Update: I rather prefer Principle Scientist, the title ascribed to me by Anne Galloway]. I'm excited about the opportunities to contribute to a number of strategic initiatives NRC is exploring, and to help this new lab grow into a world-class center of open innovation for using technology for connecting people.

As I noted in an earlier post on purpose and passion, the dream of Interrelativity -- using technology for helping people relate -- remains very much alive, even though the business of Interrelativity, the company I'd founded, had foundered. I see a natural alignment between missions -- or at least the mantras -- of Nokia and Interrelativity: connecting people and helping people relate.

I had the good fortune -- and mixed blessing -- of considering several job offers, each appealing in similar and different ways. I have mixed feelings about my decision: I feel sad about declining the other offers, but am grateful for having had the opportunty to consider them, and am happy about the path I've chosen.

Don’t protect, correct (commit yourself to any decision you make and give it all you got … but if it doesn’t work out, change it!)

I'm not sure what to expect, so it's relatively easy to let go of expectations -- and embrace working without attachments. NRCPA is very young, and I believe that the experimentation and innovation in our research will be complimented by experimentation and innovation in our model(s) of research. In fact, this multidimensional openness is part of the appeal for me.

The underlying problem is that by rooting your sense of self in something that will fluctuate, like the current position of any measurable part of your life, you’re going to suffer in one way or another....Instead of rooting your sense of self in your position, which is changeable, what would happen if you rooted your sense of self in something permanent and unchangeable? Stop identifying yourself with any form of positional status, and pick something invulnerable instead… like a pure concept that nothing in this world can touch. Examples include unconditional love, service to humanity, faith in a higher power, compassion, nonviolence, and so on.

[Other examples may include helping people relate ... or connecting people.]

As human beings, we are constantly trying to find solid ground on which to stand. But from that solid ground, we also want a relationship with the intangible. If poetry is anything, it's that relationship -- the conversation between what is solid, grounded and real in our life and what we long for in the untouchable, the numinous, the eternal.

I will continue to play the edge between the real and the ideal, seeking to bridge gaps between people by bridging the gaps between the real (physical) world and the virtual (digital) world ... and, starting tomorrow, working together with my new colleagues to create new means for -- and meaning in -- connecting people.